


Come Break Me Down

by deliciousshame



Series: AoKuro Week 2016 [6]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: AoKuro Week, AoKuro Week 2016, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-06-08 22:04:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6875476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deliciousshame/pseuds/deliciousshame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe becoming a teacher at Teikou wasn't the best way to keep the past at bay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

At first, he hesitates. It's been years, but the memories won't fade, no matter how much he wishes they would. But the terms are good, it's not far from where he lives at moment and he'll have an advantage as an alumnus, so, despite a few misgivings, he applies for the post of Japanese language teacher at Teikou Middle School.

_______________

It's still strange, will probably always remain strange how he walks down the hallways of the school, everything a little bit smaller than it used to be, students wearing the same uniform he used to wear parting to let him pass. How he sees students going to the gymnasium and how easy it is to see himself or any of the others in their young forms seen from afar. 

Teikou Middle School's basketball club is still a force to be reckoned with, but the Generation of Miracles was never equalled. He still hears whispers from its member of their unrivalled strength, see admiring glances at their trophies, still exposed. He knows they'll never think of asking him, so unassuming, about it. Tetsuya doesn’t mind. He’s not sure what he’d say if it happened. It’s both too close to him and too long along.

It doesn’t happen. 

_______________

Time passes. It's what time does.

_______________

The return of Aomine Daiki to Japan does not go unremarked. His career in the NBA was followed avidly by many, Tetsuya himself included. It’s much talked about in the halls of the school, the legend coming back to his home country. Older teachers paint him into a model student, which might be the most ridiculous thing Tetsuya has ever heard. Even if they haven’t talked since… he left for America, he likes to think he knows more about Aomine-kun than all of them combined. 

It doesn’t take long for the school to start talking about inviting him to make a speech, maybe having him appear at some sort of fundraising event. Good luck getting him to agree to such things, though years as a public figure probably familiarised him with this kind of thing. 

Tetsuya doesn’t really know how he feels about it. The idea of meeting Aomine-kun again is already somewhat daunting, but here? Even after all this time, he still feels trapped by their shared history sometimes, and the decor wouldn’t be helping at all. 

But that is all out of his hands. It’ll happen or it won’t. 

_______________

It does, of course, happen. Aomine-kun is scheduled to visit the basketball club during practice, take a few questions from the students and share a few words, probably about how Teikou pushed him toward success. Journalists will definitively be there. He’s still popular, and a story about him and middle schools students? It will sell wonderfully. 

Tetsuya tries, and fails, not to worry about it. The date is coming closer every day. Should he just drop by the gym, like a lot of people will, and bets on his innate ability not to be noticed just to sneak a peek at Aomine-kun? Would it be better just to ignore the whole thing and move on?

The choice is taken out of his hands when someone involved in the planning of the event pulls out old team rosters and spots his name. They ask, and Tetsuya tells them they used to play together. Further verifications confirm his tale, and so they decided he should obviously be there to greet his old friend, the two alumni having succeeded, showing the students what they could become if they followed the school’s doctrine. He’d hoped so badly that wouldn’t happen, but it did, so all he can do is make the best of it. 

That’s how he end up on the welcoming committee, one of the many people standing behind the principal as he greets Aomine-kun with a little too much familiarity. If Aomine-kun noticed him, he didn’t let it show. The principal doesn’t introduce them. They all act more as an entourage than anything else. 

The principal is rattling on and on on their way to the gymnasium, and Aomine-kun replies with polite soundbites that sound nothing like him, nothing like the Aomine-kun he used to know. Maybe America changed him so much that they don’t have anything left in common. Maybe they won’t even share a word.

Maybe it’s better that way.

They get there. The students are suitably impressed. They’d swarm him if this wasn’t Teikou and the discipline wasn’t so ingrained in them. Instead, it goes rather smoothly. Aomine-kun replies to everyone correctly. His love of the game is still obvious, and the amount of relief he feels when Tetsuya realises this is still intact can’t be described. Photos are taken, hands are shaken and the people are moved to another room to give the journalists and some other visitors the chance to talk to him directly for a few minutes. 

Tetsuya hangs around the room, as unobtrusive as he can be, and watches Aomine-kun deal with all the inquiries with evident grace, how strange. Tetsuya wants to leave. The principal didn’t get the touching reunion between the two of them he had hoped for, a grand gesture that would have solidified the links between the school and the star. Personally, he would prefer to skip both this party and the public reunion. 

Surely he’s been there long enough. He can slip out, no one will notice his absence. He passes the door unopposed.

“Yeah right, like I’d let you leave like that. It’s been so long, were you really going to just not say anything to me?”

Here and now, in the deserted hallway, Aomine-kun sounds just like he used to and nothing like he did earlier. “How did you manage to leave that room?”

“Bathroom break, duh.” Of course. 

Aomine-kun is hugging him, not the kind of embrace they used to share, but something closer to old friends. “It’s so good to see you, Tetsu. It’s been forever! Looking good! And you work here? Why didn’t you tell me? Man, maybe I’ll come work here too, do some coaching or something. That’d be something.”

And that’s just. Too much for Tetsuya to deal with. He can’t manage with Aomine-kun here, acting like nothing happened, like they’re just two good friends meeting by chance for the first time in a while, maybe on their way to get a drink together and reminisce about the good old times. He can’t. “Aomine-kun, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not? It’d be nice to see each other again, and I need to do something. I’m way too young to just retire completely.”

He’s the one that has a problem. He knows that. It was years ago. There are no reasons for them not to become friends again. “It’s Teikou.” He doesn’t think he has to voice the importance the school had in their life and the baggage that comes with it.

“Sure. It’s where we really became serious about basket and it’s where we first met. Seems to me it’d be a good place to get back together again.” 

Even now, Tetsuya is so happy for Aomine-kun, who dealt with it all so much better that he did. He doesn’t look like he’s talking about them becoming a couple again. He’s obviously completely over that period of his life. He had quite a few beautiful lovers too, their pictures splashed all over the magazines. He can tell himself Tetsuya was just a mistake of youth and settles down, maybe start a family. “That might be nice, but maybe we could start more slowly. It’s been years after all. I don’t know you that much anymore.”

“Oh, sure, we can do that. I don’t expect you to spend the night today. My place is still a mess. Date then? Shit, I have no idea where to take you. I’ll have to check things out a bit. Give me a week maybe? And your phone number and email address, that’d help.”

“…Aomine-kun, you were talking about a… romantic relationship? Again? Now, with journalists on the other side of the door that are surely waiting for you to come back?”

“Sure, why not? And who cares about them, I’m retired. Or do you have someone? Shit, I should have asked that before, shouldn’t I? Do you?”

“No, but-“

“Great, then why not? It’s not like we broke up because we didn’t like each other. I missed you and I think we were good together. We could at least try, couldn’t we?” 

Like it’s that easy, like they should just get back together because they can now. He’s right, they only broke up because Aomine-kun had to leave and Tetsuya hadn’t wanted to live in America, and anyway he’d though the idea of being a NBA player’s gay lover was ridiculous as best, dangerous at worst. But he’s not sure he can, he’s not sure he’s able to just brush the years he mostly spent alone aside, and he’s really uncertain about how he’d feel seeing Aomine-kun enter the gym every day, too tall, too old to be there. “Did that just cross your mind when you saw me here, like oh, now this is convenient?” He doesn’t think he could handle that. 

“No, I was planning on looking for you, but you’re right, it’s convenient, or maybe Midorima would say it’s fate. You’re not a second thought or anything like that. Is it so hard to believe I really missed you?”

It is. “You never tried to reach me.”

“I didn’t think you wanted me to? You seemed pretty intent on cutting bridges and I had no idea if I would stay in America after retiring, so I felt like it was fairer to you. I don’t think that should stop us from trying again. I’m not asking you to marry me. You have nothing to lose by giving it a try.”

He’s so… flippant about it, like he could shrug off his rejection without it hurting it too much. It’s baffling to him. “I’m seriously not sure I can. It’s a lot to ask for, out of the blue like this.”

“No it’s not. If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out and that’s all it is. We haven’t been in each other’s life for years, it’s not like going back to that would change much.” Aomine-kun pauses. For a second, maybe for the first time since his arrival, it seems like he’s really looking at Tetsuya. “I’m not really scared of that happening, but you look like you are. It was bad for you, wasn’t it? I see that now. I didn’t think it’d been that bad. Sorry, I guess. Look, just think about it? I’ll give you my number, and you can call me when you decide what you wanna do. Just go, I have to get back in it or they’ll come get me.”

And he just leaves, as fast as he showed up, leaving behind his phone number and a lot of thinking he hadn’t wanted to do. 

_______________

He goes to work the next day and tries to imagine seeing Aomine-kun in the hallways, eating lunch with him, going home with him after practice. He tries to imagine his future with both Teikou and Aomine-kun in it, and finds he very easily can. That makes him sigh. The idea that he put everything on hold until Aomine-kun came back, that he surrounded himself in the past and stagnated there is upsetting to him. He was taken by surprise yesterday, hadn’t expected such a change in his peaceful status quo. Today, in the light of day, he wonders why he reacted the way he did. Why he was so afraid of going for something he’s wanted for so long when it was freely offered. That’s not like him at all. They had decided to break up consciously after having discussed it intensively. He’d chosen this. If he wanted it again, all he had to do is chose again. Of course it’s scary, choices are. Of course it could go wrong, everything can. He’ll deal with it again if it happen. He can do that. 

So he comes back home, sits down and calls, hoping it’s for the best.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aomine's pov.

He can’t say he’s not happy. That’d be a lie. In fact, he’s still amazed sometimes when he wakes up and is greeted by Tetsu’s sleeping face. After all these years, despite all that existed between them, all the good and the bad, they finally made their way there. Tetsu is his. Not Kagami’s, not Satsuki’s, definitively not Kise’s. His.

The thing is, he won’t be for long. He knows that. Tetsu also knows that. He can’t imagine Tetsu will want to move with him to the States, but he also can’t imagine Tetsu of all people wanting to keep him from basket. They were doomed from the start, Daiki knew that, but he decided he still wanted to get what he could for now. He doesn’t regret it, not one bit. He thinks Tetsu must have arrived to the same conclusion. There should be no tears, Daiki thinks. They'll be fine.

____________________________

She's gone. 

It started with a stupid slip-up (Doesn't it always?). She'd been talking about a residential complex her team was designing the plans of, a major, revolutionary project she was very excited for, gesticulating wildly and blushing slightly. It was super cute. She said it was going to take years to finish it, and he had said it was too bad he wasn't going to be around to see it when it was over. She had frozen completely, one hand still in the air, and Daiki had cursed under his breath. 

They broke up soon after that. He wishes he was more depressed about it than he really is. The magazines had thought they were all but married, his teammates now saw them as a set and she was solidly involved in the wives and girlfriends circle. Daiki's the only one who couldn't see it, them buying a bigger place to raise a few kids somewhere near a good school. He'd always thought he'd go back to Japan after he'd retired. He loves the USA, but it's not his home. That didn’t fly with her. She doesn't speak Japanese and has no desire to learn, or leave job, friends and family for him. Nothing about it all surprised him. He was pretty sure this was how it would turn out. He made his peace with it long ago. 

Well, it's not that big a loss. The PR he'll need to do because of it bothers him more than her departure. Japan has things to offer she can't compare to.

____________________________

He honestly thought things would get quieter once he had retired and moved back home. The journalists here are way tamer than those oversea, and basket is also a lot less popular.

He's not wrong _per se_ , but he still get offers and demands for interviews and requests to appear here and there. He's used to this shit now, he can deal with it, but he doesn't enjoy it. He has other things to do he'd rather spend his time on, like deciding what he's gonna do and looking up old acquaintances he hasn't talked to in year. Like a certain old flame of his. He'd never completely left his mind, and since he came back alone, why not give themselves another chance? He has nothing to lose.

Talking about old acquaintances, he can't help but be intrigued by Teikou's invitation. It's Teikou after all. Who isn't curious about what happened at their old school after they left? He'll probably accept that one.

____________________________

Well, he wasn't expecting that, but there's no mistaking it. That's Tetsu behind the principal, still pretty much impossible to notice for the average person. That makes him want to ditch the whole thing and just focus on Tetsu, but his agent doesn't have to be screaming it for him to know that isn't a good idea, especially considering what he wants to talk about.

____________________________

Hey. 

Hey! Tetsu's trying to leave without even talking to him! Yeah right, like he’s gonna let that happen. 

First, ditching his current entourage. He's good at this now, so he escapes with relative ease. 

Tetsu has already left the main room, which has the advantage of giving them both some privacy for their touching reunion. 

Tetsu turns toward him, and Daiki can finally get a good look at him. Still hot, his brain helpfully supplies. Not the time, brain. “Yeah right, like I’d let you leave like that. It’s been so long, were you really going to just not say anything to me?” Seriously. Some people are just so rude.

Tetsu deflects, Daiki lets it go to go for the hug he wanted since he first spotted him in the entrance. He made good friends over there, but none of them could compare to Tetsu. “It’s so good to see you, Tetsu. It’s been forever! Looking good! And you work here? Why didn’t you tell me? Man, maybe I’ll come work here too, do some coaching or something. That’d be something.” That’s a great idea! He’d get to see Tetsu all the time. They could catch up in no time at all, and he'd get a job! Sometimes, he’s so smart, he scares himself. 

“Aomine-kun, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

And here comes the party pooper. Never change. “Why not? It’d be nice to see each other again, and I need to do something. I’m way too young to just retire completely.”

“It’s Teikou.”

“Sure. It’s where we really became serious about basket and it’s where we first met. Seems to me it’d be a good place to get back together again.” 

“That might be nice, but maybe we could start more slowly. It’s been years after all. I don’t know you that much anymore.”

Victory! Wow, that was easy. Daiki can deal with slow, no problem. “Oh, sure, we can do that. I don’t expect you to spend the night today. My place is still a mess. Date then? Shit, I have no idea where to take you. I’ll have to check things out a bit. Give me a week maybe? And your phone number and email address, that’d help.”

“…Aomine-kun, you were talking about a… romantic relationship? Again? Now, with journalists on the other side of the door that are surely waiting for you to come back?”

Okay, so maybe it won’t be that easy, but it’s not unmanageable. “Sure, why not? And who cares about them, I’m retired. Or do you have someone? Shit, I should have asked that before, shouldn’t I? Do you?” He really should have. He just... The thought never crossed his mind. Of course Tetsu would be available, and of course they’d get back together eventually. That’s probably shitty of him. Tetsu’s a catch, he could totally have someone nice that wouldn’t have left him to work on the other side of the planet, damn it. 

“No, but-“

Thank god. Here he was, panicking for nothing. “Great, then why not? It’s not like we broke up because we didn’t like each other. I missed you and I think we were good together. We could at least try, couldn’t we?” 

“Did that just cross your mind when you saw me here, like oh, now this is convenient?” 

Hey, he’s not that flippant! Most of the time! “No, I was planning on looking for you, but you’re right, it’s convenient, or maybe Midorima would say it’s fate. You’re not a second thought or anything like that. Is it so hard to believe I really missed you?” Seriously?

“You never tried to reach me.”

“I didn’t think you wanted me to? You seemed pretty intent on cutting bridges and I had no idea if I would stay in America after retiring, so I felt like it was fairer to you. I don’t think that should stop us from trying again. I’m not asking you to marry me. You have nothing to lose by giving it a try.” Surely Tetsu can see it wouldn’t have been fair of him to try and keep him for himself with that kind of uncertainty. Sure, a lot of things became clearer in his mind with the passing of the years, but he didn’t have that certainty at the time. Tetsu can’t hold his youth against him, right? All he’s asking for is a second chance. 

“I’m seriously not sure I can. It’s a lot to ask for, out of the blue like this.”

“No it’s not. If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out and that’s all it is. We haven’t been in each other’s life for years, it’s not like going back to that would change much.” 

This... is not working like he thought it would. Now that he thinks about it, Tetsu is being so defensive, nothing like the casual acceptance he expected. He acts like he’s scared of being hurt, and Daiki finally gets something he should have much, much earlier in the conversation, if only by looking at the way Tetsu stands, tense, a bit hunched, a little too far away like he’s afraid to reach out, or maybe he’s afraid of being touched. His eyes aren’t meeting his most of the time. There's nothing of the boldness of his high school years to be seen here, but there’s no way that Tetsu is gone. Daiki will just have to bring him back. 

He moves on. “I’m not really scared of that happening, but you look like you are. It was bad for you, wasn’t it? I see that now. I didn’t think it’d been that bad. Sorry, I guess. Look, just think about it? I’ll give you my number, and you can call me when you decide what you wanna do. Just go, I have to get back in it or they’ll come get me.”

He escapes. There’s no better way to say it. He’s confused and destabilised, but the move isn’t his to make right now. He’s not giving up. If Tetsu doesn’t get in touch, he’ll try again later. Tetsu doesn’t deserve to be left stagnating that way. At the very least, he has to try and mend what he assumed would just be faded scratches but turned out to be gaping wounds, the hell, where the fuck did things go so wrong?

The rest of the evening is a blur. He spends it on autopilot, too preoccupied by the failed reunion to give anyone else much thought. So does most of the following day, to be honest. 

Then he gets the phone call, and he remembers that’s Tetsu he was talking about. How dumb could he be to think he could have gotten him too down to move. It's been too long for him too. 

Now all he has to do is show him this, they, are actually a good idea. That’s shouldn’t be too hard. To him, it’s always been self-evident.


End file.
